Nearly done!

Oof. It's been a busy old week or two, so it has. I've now done and received marks for the majority of my exams, and generally done pretty well. I still have one small assessment left, which I've not actually received yet, but when I do, I have pretty much the whole summer to do it and send it back, so now is time to relax :)

Last weekend was Gemma's birthday, so on Saturday we all went out for a meal at some mexican place near me, then later travelled on to the Kulturbrauerei, where Gemma had pretty much booked out one of the clubs. The food was very nice, even if the service was terrible, and the club was good, all kind of chilled-out and things. Also of note, I spent some time that evening speaking to Dom from Hollyoaks, as he happens to be a friend of Gemma's! He's quite cool, although his real name constantly escapes me. And I know I shouldn't watch things like Hollyoaks, but being a student, it just sort of happens...

I'm coming towards the end of my time in Berlin now, so I've also been wandering around a bit taking photos of the everyday sights I see and things I do here. Not had chance to upload them yet, but as I'm not quite finished on that front either, it'll have to wait a while. Work in progress, that is.

Very soon I'm going to be all systems go again...Sunday evening I take a night train to Austria to visit Michael and Lisi, who I've not seen for 3 years! After that I'm going to bob off to München to see Holly, then grab a day in Dresden before picking Matt up from the airport in Berlin. We have a few mad days here, a few more at WACKEN and then I have a couple of days to pack and everything before finally going home. Weird.

A Week of Culture

Well, last week was somewhat different. On Wednesday, myself, Johanna and my flat mate [sic] Martin went to the Berliner Ensemble theatre (designed by none other than Bertold Brecht, for those of you who give a hoot) to see Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot (Warten auf Godot in German). I'd never seen or read it before, in any language, so it was an interesting experience, and it was also great to see a play in a place with such importance to the shape of modern theatre. I'm not going to go into great detail, because if there's one thing I've learned this semester, it's that in-depth analysis of plays, books etc really bores my socks off if it's someone other than me doing it,but it was....good.

A day later, not to be phased by the onset of exams and the like, I trundled off to Columbia Club to see Porcupine Tree. Not in any normal sense of the word a "metal" band, Porcupine Tree are something of an enigma on the rock scene. "Prog" is the label more normally attached to them, though comments such as that which I read recently in a German issue of Metal Hammer, describing their latest album, Fear of a Blank Planet, as "one of the most important metal albums of this year so far" are not uncommon. Generally they enjoy a mutual respect from most parts of the music world as one of the most innovative bands going, and as such this lead to a very interesting crowd. Long-haired metallers lined up next to what, in England, may be described as "chavs", with a smattering of emo kids and old, Pink Floyd types to make up the numbers.

Personally I arrived towards the end of the support act, Pure Reason Revolution, by whom I was rather impressed. With a mixture of two frontmen and one frontlady, playing various guitars, keyboards and other bleepy objects between them and all contributing vocal-wise, it was one of the more interesting support acts I've seen for a while, and it was good to see such young musicians trying (and, in this case, succeeding) to do something innovative without resorting to banging their instruments on the floor or generally disappearing up their own arses. I advise getting their album if you're into this kind of thing, I'm doing so soon.

Anyway, during PRR's set I slowly and subtly made my way towards the front of the crowded room, like the seasoned gig-goer I am, and by the time the first clock-tickings of the title track of Porcupine Tree's new album sounded, I was in optimum position for the show. Which was stonking. None of them may look like consummate rock stars, but this was completely beside the point, as their music basically speaks for itself. They broke the new album up throughout the evening, playing old favourites and a couple of obscurities in between. All in all, a very good show, and 2 bands I'd definitely pay to see again.

Plan for the weekend was mainly revision, but after a good day's work on Friday, I felt I deserved a break, so myself, Johanna, Hanna, Martin, Marcus and his brother went out for a few drinks, starting at Bar 103 in Kastanienallee and ending up rather unexpectedly in Roter Salon down at Rosa-Luxembourg Platz. It has to be said, not as much work got done the next day as hoped, but I did get my hair cut. Far too short for my liking, but isn't that always the case?

Freiburg and the Schwarzwald

Last weekend, as is my wont at the end of a month, I hopped on a train again, this time to the opposite corner of Germany to pay my good friend and housemate Clarissa a long overdue visit. It's quite ridiculous that we'd not seen each other for over a year, so despite 6 hours and over €100 worth of train journey, it was well worth it :)

I actually arrived in Freiburg slightly ahead of Clarissa, as she'd been home for a few days, so I took it upon myself to wander around a bit. It's a nice little town, maybe a bit bigger than Västerås, but prettier. However, due to it's size, I was perfectly capable of doing the rounds of most of the sights before Clarissa even arrived, and did just that. After taking lunch in a café Johanna recommended to me, that is. And most spiffing it was too, but I won't go into detail, as I feel I've already written enough about food to fill a seperate blog on its own, and I'm sure I'll mention more later, too.



Clarissa rolled in about six o' clock, and our plan was to drop things off back at hers, freshen up a bit then go out and see where the night took us. However, a year of catching up takes its toll, and nearly 7 hours later we were shocked to find it was nearly 11 PM. As the weekend went on, we eventually came to realise that we were spending most of it in our own parallel dimension where time worked completely differently, and as such shock at where the real world was up to became a regular occurrence on the odd occasion we saw fit to interact with it.

In any case, we did eventually make it outside to a little bar which soon became the "local" for the weekend. Here we ate, drank and made merry all at the same time, but not for very long, because they were almost literally throwing us out when they closed at two. Having both had travel days, we were actually pretty tired by that point, so slumber was the best option anyway.



This slumber continued at a leisurely rate until well into the morning, though we still managed to complete our agenda for the day. Upon arranging my visit, Clarissa had stated that she "hoped I liked trees", as that was pretty much all the area had to offer. As luck would have it, I am partial to a good tree, and the Black Forest certainly has them in abundance. With this in mind, we too a tram, a bus and a cable car into the nearest corner of it, and had a wee ramble around the hills etc. We don't have much in the way of real forests in England anymore, and as most of my travels have been train-bound this year, I'm not sure I've ever seen anything quite on this scale before. It was amazing, and I was very happy.

Upon returning to the "centre" of Freiburg, we had a bit of a nibble and a drink, which soon became a couple of cocktails, and before we knew it we'd lost time again. Despite this, we did eventually make it back home and then out again in time for a visit to Schlappen and then the local rock club,Crash, which was celebrating its 25th anniversary, or some such. As such, it was pretty busy and full of interesting types, our personal favourite being a pensioner in a suit and straw hat, with an impressive beard, who spent most of his time on the dancefloor. I don't know what it is about Germans, but they seem to have no shame in this kind of thing. It's great.

Sunday morning was once again late, so I shouldn't have been surprised or offended at the wry smile our waiter gave me when I asked for breakfast at 3 PM. But I was, and as he went on to speak to us in a combination of French, English and German, he gradually worked his way out of a tip, despite an excellent breakfast. Foreigners eh?

The rest of the day was spent pretty much in the same way, just in cafés, bars and Spielotheks...pretty much the only way there is to spend time in Freiburg, it seems, but pleasant nontheless. We arose a little earlier on Monday in order to take another extensive breakfast with another strange waiter before my train home. It was truly wondrous to see Clarissa again, and also fun to frolick in the Schwarzwald, a much-needed break before the onset of exams. This week, in between revising, there are two trips to the theater and a Porcupine Tree gig. More on that story later.